by Stuart Kells
Just a little story to illustrate the intelligence of the average Australian. You know the stories about an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman? Well the same kind of stories appear in some of the papers out here. An Englishman does ‘x’, a Scotsman ‘xx’ and an Australian ‘xxxx’. I was talking to an Australian one day and he, quite seriously, pointed out to me that the Australian nearly always ‘came out on top’.
There are certain pictures in my mind which, although I am afraid I could not write much about them, are very vivid.
At the commencement of the fruit harvest – several months ago, before our new trolley arrived – we borrowed an old trolley to cart our dried fruit into the shed. It was a very heavy trolley. It weighed about a ton and it had fixed swings which our horses do not like. So we had some trouble with it and the horses; the latter refused to pull.
One day, I started to go into the shed with a load of about a ton – a very light load – but the horses refused to pull. When I told them to go, only one would start. Then that one would stop and the other one start. Just like a ‘see-saw’. It must have been soon after 2pm when we loaded up at the drying green and at 5pm we had moved about fifty yards. The boss and I had done everything we could think of to try and make them go, but all to no avail.
We were both very cross and decided to go and have tea and afterwards have another shot. Just to try and get the trolley outside the block. The road outside had a hard surface while the paddock where we were stuck was slightly sandy. If we managed to get the trolley on the road we thought that we would stop, take the horses back, give them a feed and try again in the morning. With a hard surface the trolley would almost roll along. We had tried everything. Jimmy would persist in stepping back as far as his collar would permit then leaping forward, with the consequence that he had broken one leather trace, two leather pole straps and at least four links of a chain. We were getting rather ‘fed up’ with it and so went off to tea.
Friday, 4 July 1924
As tea was not quite ready, I decided to go and fetch the cow. But as I was passing the stables I spied Jack Waters. I hopped over the channel and asked him what he would do with two horses that would not pull. I regarded him as an authority on the matter. He has been handling horses for the last twenty years and is acknowledged to be fairly good with them.
He said he would come down and have a look at them, so off we went. The sun was just setting when we got there so we had no time to lose, for half an hour after sunset it is quite dark. But the horses would not budge. We patted them. We tried to lead them. We whipped them. We flogged them. We took them out and gave them a walk around. We shouted at them and, at last, we swore at them. Can you blame us? But they would not move. Only ‘see-saw’. Now this is the picture which is imprinted on my mind. The sky all blood red just after the sun had set, the red sandy soil of the paddock we were in. The dull green of a nearby orange block. Two sweating and steaming horses, two sweating and swearing men.
Soon it was dark. The orange block was dark. The ground was dark. The sky was dark and the men were dark. But the horses were white with foam.
‘Now steady there, Jimmy. Steady old boy. Right!’
Crack! Crack!
‘Get up there you lazy brute. You, gee-e-up! Whey, then. Whoa there, Nellie.’
And so on. We had to give it up in the end and as a punishment we left the horses there, all harnessed up, all night. Just blocked the wheels and left them.
In the end we had to take the fruit in in an old wagon. The trouble was the swing. The horses certainly had no excuse to ‘stick up’ with only a ton on, but all the year they are used to the ordinary double swing and the trolley had fixed swings. On our new trolley, if one horse starts he pulls the other one back. No respectable horse will stand this, so he starts also. On the borrowed trolley, if one horse started he had the whole to move. Also, all the year round the horses have a low pull (drought, I believe it is called) and this ‘wretched, heavy, fixed swinged trolley’ had a very high pull.
On Sunday night Mr and Mrs Higgins came here. Music and conversation during the evening, and I ran them home in the car soon after 11 o’clock. Monday night the usual game of bridge with Jack. Tuesday night went to the pictures. Wednesday night I walked over to Bob Beer’s to fetch a parcel from home which he had kindly brought from Renmark for me. On Thursday night, Woods, Brison and Jack came over and played bridge with the boss. It was impossible to do any writing, owing to them sitting under the light. It being too dark in any other part of the room to write. Also it was a cold night and we all kept as near the fire as possible.
On Tuesday night I said I went to the pictures. The film was If Winter Comes. I enjoyed it, but (there are several buts) … First of all, it was too long. There is not enough material in the book for the ten parts. It was too faked, too theatrical, too long drawn out, too much conversation in it. Not enough out-o-door scenery for my liking. Nearly all studio work. Also it was absolutely spoilt by the operator putting on part four before part three. The seats in the pictures have no arms and have no cushions. Also one is not allowed to smoke. I said I enjoyed it. So I did – after a fashion. Not as much as I expected, though.
The ‘Topical Budget’ included a slow-motion picture of an airman jumping off an aeroplane with a parachute. It was rather interesting.
We are now having real winter weather. Cold nights and mornings and warm days – sometimes. One day last week I saw the thickest ice on the horse trough that I have ever seen, in Australia. I measured it and it was exactly one-quarter of an inch think. Sometimes we do get a real warm day. One I remember in particular. It was freezing in the early morning, when I rose, and yet at midday the shade temperature was about 90°F (a sun temperature of well over 100°F). This is really too much of a variation. Last summer was the coldest ever known in South Australia and records have been kept for about eighty years. This winter is the coldest ever known.
Saturday, 12 July 1924
Dear, oh dear. What a week. Last Monday morning, while we were pruning, the boss mentioned to me that Mrs Withers had a nasty lump coming on her side. Tuesday it was so bad that the doctor came and examined it. He identified it as a tumour and said that she would have to go to the hospital to have it removed. Quite a simple operation. All over in a week. So on Wednesday night she went to the hospital. Thursday morning the doctor rang-up the boss and said that he must see him in the afternoon. When the boss came back on Thursday evening he was a broken man.
‘What’s the verdict?’ I asked, not dreaming that there was anything wrong.
‘The very worst possible,’ he answered. ‘They can’t operate up here. Much worse than they expected. Must have a specialist – at least fifty guineas, possibly more. Got to go down to Adelaide Sunday or Monday. Special car, twenty guineas. Nursing home in Adelaide, six guineas a week. Be there are least a month, and I haven’t any money.’
The doctor up here rang up the specialist in Adelaide and explained the case to him. The specialist said he would have to operate at the very latest on Monday. The patient would have to be in Adelaide on Saturday and he might have to operate immediately. It was a most serious case and the operation he would most likely perform would be second only to a caesarean operation. The tumour had been lying passive for perhaps ten years, but now it was active and unless it was removed within a few days he would not give much hope for her life.
Yesterday was spent making arrangements. The doctor thought it would be best to break the journey and have two hours’ rest, if possible. So this morning Mrs Withers and the boss left for Adelaide. Service car to Morgan and from there by train to Adelaide.
So here I am, baching once again. This time I have three cows to look after – two in milk and the third with a passion for getting into adjoining blocks.
It was a bit of a rush this morning and after the boss had left I looked around to see if I could find a job. There was Ann to take down and shut in the bottom block. She has lately acquired a taste for pear an
d prune trees – chewing the spurs and shoots – and has therefore to be placed in a block where there are none. There were the fowls to feed. The cats to feed. Joey to feed. There was the washing up to do. There was no hot water. The fire was nearly out and there was no wood chopped. The fire place in the sitting room had to be cleaned out and there was my bed to make. After these and a few other sundry jobs, I could start work! What a life.
The washing up was the worst job. Milk bucket, milk strainer, milk pans (for scalding the milk), two enamel dishes, one china dish, ordinary plates and porridge plates, knives, forks, spoons, cups and saucers, glasses, china basins, egg cups and three saucepans. I wanted lots of hot water for this job and as there was no wood cut I had to go and cut some. Then someone came across for a dozen eggs. Need I say that I did not do much work this morning.
Yes, it has been a nice, quiet sort of a week all right. The boss nearly off his head with worry. And what do you think the quotation on my calendar for today is? ‘A man’s worst troubles are those that never happen.’
Sunday, 13 July 1924
It is a great wonder to me how some people appear to like baching. Take Brison, Brison from Bristol, for instance. He doesn’t appear to mind it at all. Then, of course, he has baching quarters. Just a small one-roomed cubicle. He hasn’t cows and fowls to look after. It’s quite a job collecting the eggs. Fowls will persist in laying everywhere except where they are meant to lay – that is the fowl house, where four or five laying boxes are provided. No, they must each have a nest of their own. One lays just outside the door of the fowl house, silly hen. Another at the back of the house. Two lay in a seat box full of papers in one of the sheds. Two or three eggs are always to be found in a box in the garage. There are three nests in the workshop. And so on. Silly things fowls, aren’t they?
I picked up a book yesterday afternoon and after getting fairly interested in it I found that after page ninety came page 130. No, the pages had not been torn out but the binders had put in pages 130 to 170 twice and left out pages ninety to 130. This sort of thing is rather apt to annoy a chap. Of course, the book was published by one of those second, or third, rate publishers.
When one is young and reads about the men who live by themselves out in the ‘back of beyond’, who have to hunt and kill their own food and ‘boil their billy’ at sundown, one thinks what a glorious life it must be. No worries, no homework. Sitting outside a hut in front of a wood fire and gazing at the twinkling diamonds in the celestial sphere. In the early morning, when it is delightfully fresh, to spring out of bed and light the fire, cook some eggs and perhaps some bacon off that wild hog that you shot two or three days ago. While you are having breakfast to watch the light blue smoke from your fire coiling up to the deeper blue of the heavens. To watch the mist gradually disperse in the valley and reveal the tall trees. The tall, majestic, dark green trees which look like a regiment of soldiers and which appear almost human. To watch the changing colours on the distant mountains. You whistle. Your horse appears. You throw a saddle on him and … off to those distant mountains – to hunt, to kill tomorrow’s dinner.
Yes, it’s all very nice, but I expect it’s a bit lonely. Some people may enjoy it. I’ve no doubt that they do, but I don’t think I am one of them.
There is no very beautiful scenery about here, but when I do see some pleasant it makes me almost sad. If I am by myself I hardly enjoy it at all. I want you to see it. If you were with me I should enjoy it fifty times more. Just to watch and see you enjoy it. That would be more pleasure for me than the scenery itself. I don’t mean that I would rather see you than any scenery, that is too obvious and that is a different matter altogether. If I keep on in this strain much longer I shall be telling you that I am ‘home sick’. So I will change the subject.
Mrs Withers’ illness, besides causing much money to be spent in direct expenses, will also cause a lot of indirect expense. I have in my mind sultana canes. Every year Mrs Withers rolls the sultana canes.
Wednesday, 16 July 1924
Vine pruning can be roughly classed into two sections. Pruning by selection of canes and spur pruning. Spur pruning is very simple. All you do is to cut each shoot back to two buds. When there are two shoots off one spur, cut one shoot off. I think I ought to have said: as there are two shoots off each spur. For in nine cases out of ten there are two; there only being one when the other bud is damaged.
Currants are usually trained on two wires and sometimes, on old vines, a weak spur will be ‘drowned out’ on the lower arm by the combined foliage of the two arms. This is not so frequent in Doras, as they are nearly always trained on one wire with the top wire to support the foliage.
These shoots you may think of as being the thickness of a pencil. But in young vines, in good ground, I have seen shoots as thick as an average man’s thumb and over twenty feet long. Thank goodness there are not many shoots this length.
Now, pruning by selecting fruiting canes is a much more complicated affair. The number of canes you leave depends on a number of things. How close the vines are together; the age of the vines; the growth they have made; the condition of the canes and numerous other minor details. But the number usually varies between four and eight. The canes you select must be fruiting canes, and fruiting canes are either shoots off last year’s wood or shoots off last year’s spur. It is practically the same thing: they must be off last year’s wood.
You leave a cane with twenty buds on it. You find, next year, that seventeen of those buds have shot. Ten of the shoots are under two feet long and three of the shoots have been broken. That leaves you four good fruiting canes. In selecting canes, you take the one or ones which are nearest the butt of the vine. This is to keep the vine in a good shape. If the cane you select shot from the fifth bud from the butt, you must clean all the first four shoots off; perhaps they are too small or are broken. Usually the longest and strongest canes are nearest the butt and nearest the end. The two extremes. You want to leave the least amount of old wood that is possible. So, usually, you prefer to have canes off a spur – that is, a cane cut back to two or three buds – than off one of last year’s canes.
The sultana is the only commercial vine which is pruned in that way up here, but Ohaney vines are also pruned by selection of canes. In pruning sultanas you do not want to have any ‘arms’ to the vine. Just the butt, with the shoot in as close as possible. In pruning this way you have to consider next year. If you did not leave any spurs you would be forced to go to last year’s canes for your fruiting wood.
In pruning sultanas there are three phases. First, the actual pruning, the selection of canes. Secondly, the pulling-off of all the useless wood and canes. And, lastly, the rolling of the selected fruiting canes on the wire or wires. Sometimes, in rolling, the canes have to be tied to the wire, but usually they stick on after they have been twisted around the wire or few canes.
Sultana pruning is a most complicated business and I did not mean to enter into any explanation of it. I knew I should get into a tangle so I will get out of it by promising to explain it to you fully when I come home. It will be a lot easier then. Sorry, but it’s bed time.
Thursday, 17 July 1924
Having got into a tangle last night over sultana pruning I will not say much more about it. I find I did not mention one of the most important facts. The length of cane to be rolled. It is usually between two and three feet. So one would be safe to call it two feet six inches.
After reading the last two pages, can you honestly say that you know anything more about vine pruning than you did before you read them? I’m afraid not. But still, I did not mean to enter into a lengthy explanation on the subject. All I meant to tell you was what Mrs Withers’ job was. To explain what was meant by rolling sultana canes. And as I’m afraid I have failed, I will shut up.
The boss and Mrs Withers left for Adelaide on Saturday. The specialist examined Mrs Withers on Saturday night and said he would operate on Sunday morning. But when she was in the operating the
atre and, I believe, after the anaesthetic had been given, he examined her blood and found that it contained too much sugar. He could not operate. He postponed the operation for a week. He chose the lesser of two evils and now Mrs Withers is being treated with insulin.
The specialist said that in order to keep her spirits up she should have as many visitors as possible. So the boss spent the whole of Monday looking up her friends and asking them to visit her. After this, the boss wanted to come back to Renmark as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Making enquiries, he found that drivers were wanted to take some Ford ton-trucks to the Renmark agent. So, on Tuesday morning, behold the boss leaving Adelaide in a new and very stiff Ford truck. He left Adelaide about 8 o’clock and arrived in Renmark soon after 12am on Wednesday morning.
Oh dear, another visitor.
Saturday, 19 July 1924
The boss said it will be a long time before he forgets that ride. He was bumped about so much during the first few miles that he was forced to let some of the air out of the rear tyres. Bob Beer, who frequently runs down to Adelaide, reckons the distance at 187 miles. A Ford ton-truck is built to travel at from ten to twelve m.p.h. According to these two statements the journey should have taken roughly fifteen and a half hours, and that is what it took. Luckily it was nearly full moon, so he was able to jog along at the truck’s maximum, comfortable speed.
I expected the boss back between 6pm and 7pm, so I did not have tea until 7.30pm. Of course, I was in bed when he arrived. The next morning – no, the same morning, for he did not arrive until after 12 o’clock – he told me all about the journey and said that he would be going down to Adelaide again on Saturday. This statement he fulfilled, for the service car called for him shortly after 8 o’clock this morning. So once again I am baching.